CONFESSIONS OF A TWITTER ADDICT

I am quitting Twitter cold-turkey, and I do not use that addiction language lightly. I’ve been fighting a social media addiction for what feels like a long time, but it only became serious about a month ago. I’m not sure exactly what the addiction is, but I can feel the dopamine shooting into my system as surely as if I’d just snorted a noseful of cocaine. I had been a recreational Twitter user for quite a while and dabbled in softer drugs like Facebook, but I recently hit bottom.

I’m not sure how it happened. In mid-August, I suddenly started getting tons of notifications in my feed from people I had never heard of. I’d somehow ended up on several threads that engaged in — well, let’s call it “political discourse.” I’ve always loved a good political debate, but of course it isn’t really debating these days. For most Twitter users, it’s just trading insults, the nastier the better.

These people on Twitter are beyond ugly — mean, vitriolic, crude, vicious. Truly. And it’s not just the trump people. Mostly, but not always.

ONLINE HELL

I quickly became part of a de facto “liberal team” against an opposing “alt-right” team, and it went downhill from there. Many of the fifty people on the threads have apparently been yelling at each other since February.

Here’s how it works: One person makes a statement of “fact” or opinion and then those who disagree run off and google to find counter-arguments. I recently had tabs open to a glossary of hard-rock mining terms, an EPA report on toxic waste in Colorado, Michelle Obama’s thesis from 1985, Helen Keller’s biography, a speech Joe Biden made in 1992, and court records of a foreclosure hearing involving the parents of the woman who has accused Judge Kavanaugh of attempted rape. You see what a good use of my time this has been?

“Libtards” or “snowflakes” generally post major news outlets or analyses by government agencies, and then the tribe of trump shouts “fake news!!” and tweets random fake news and conspiracy websites and crazed blogs as sources. Then they post an anti-Hillary meme or two, and usually end by tossing insults: Liar! Fraud! Fake! Hater! To which a liberal occasionally replies: Liar! Fraud! Fake! Hater!

One of the many “Christians” in the tribe of trump might quote Bible verses that damn you to hell while posting memes of trump standing on top of a tank with bombs bursting behind him. Recently “Daughter of the Most High God” told me to pray that “the Democratic Deep State will stop conducting mass shootings in our schools as a ploy to take away our guns. Amen.”

For a while, I tried arguing with said Christians about what Jesus might think of taking children from their parents or taking healthcare from the poor or turning away refugees or destroying God’s creation. But those people are scary, really scary, and I eventually blocked most of the religious ones.

HOOKED

I knew within a week that I was hooked and that I needed help. But I couldn’t stop. I’d get several hundred notifications a day and started to feel as if I knew these people. I’d get a feeling of accomplishment and superiority whenever I scored a “point” against the opposition and my fellow liberals would applaud me and say, “Way to go, Mel!”

Oh, there were redeeming moments and comments, and I did establish a certain joking rapport with a few trump people. I had some good laughs, like when one woman wrote, “I don’t believe in history.” But then of course she was mocked mercilessly by the liberals and it wasn’t funny anymore.

A POWER GREATER THAN TWITTER

This “confessional” blog is part of a ritual I created to give myself the strength to deactivate my account. If you have not had such an addiction, you won’t understand. I didn’t really understand either. So as part of my ritual, I journaled a stream of consciousness to find out what it is I’m addicted to — what I think I get from Twitter. I wrote words like “excitement, belonging, relevance, engagement, competence.”

There’s nothing wrong with any of those desires, but from Twitter?? God, this is embarrassing.

Anyway . . .

Last night I lit a candle, I said a pray, and then I recited a version of the first three steps of the twelve-step program: “I am powerless over Twitter and my life has become unmanageable. I know that only a power greater than myself (which I call God) can help me be free of it, and so I turn my Twitter addiction over to You and ask You to help me let it go.”

Then at 7:13 pm precisely, as the sun went down, I deactivated my account.

In thirty days, I will reactivate it to see if I can go back to reading the news and interacting with other writers, readers, literary magazines, and spiritual seekers in a healthy way. If not, I’ll deactivate for good.

BLOGGING AMIDST THE TRUMPIAN CHAOS

August marks five years since I started blogging here at Writing With Spirit, and I want to recognize the anniversary and thank my readers and followers. I truly appreciate the company.

When I first began blogging, each post was greeted with an empty echo. Now I receive encouragement and feedback (even if I am occasionally damned to hell), and I have virtual “friends” I’ve never met. I love reading comments from the people in my neighborhood, and I love imagining who my readers might be in Turkey and Japan and Australia.

I want to continue blogging — I do — yet I seem to be losing inspiration lately. Here I am in the midst of a two-week stay at my little writing retreat in New Hampshire, the place where my blog was born, and I haven’t blogged once!

Just sittin’ and pondering

I Blame trump

I blame Donald Trump, as I do for most things. Donald and Twitter. I am so overwhelmed by the chaos and danger and tragedy in the nation and the world that I can’t find a handle to get inside a story. It’s all just swirling around in my head and overwhelming me, like the toxic brown waters swirling around the people of Houston and India and Pakistan and Nepal and Yemen and Niger.

See? I try to use a simple metaphor and all of a sudden I’m drowning in the despair of lethal climate disruption and the current administration’s denial and vengeful dismantling of all of our climate protection programs. Not just the programs to research and curb the disruption and death, but the ones to address the consequences, like money for flood programs and healthcare.

And the EPA Administrator shaming the “opportunistic media” for insisting on talking about climate change “without basis or support.” And the Attorney General declaring that “Hurricane Harvey Is proof we need to militarize our police forces.” What???

And Twitter

I just can’t hold on. When I try to focus on one travesty, such as the president being unwilling to disavow white supremacists, the president encouraging police to hurt people, the president toying with nuclear annihilation, the president mocking efforts to prevent Russia from undermining our democracy, the president dooming our planet, well, I just, I just . . .

I just resort to wasting time on Twitter, is what I do. Which overwhelms me even more and exacerbates my ADD. You think you’re getting a handle on the hateful #Nazi violence in #Charlottesville when all of a sudden the hate-full #Evangelicals release their gay-bashing #NashvilleStatement. (Mean, embittered religious men must always make a resounding STATEMENT or a PROCLAMATION.)

And who can keep up with the White House firings and resignations? I am both spooked and comforted by the apparent military take-over of the White House. Near as I can tell, General John Kelly is the only reason we still have a country at this moment.

So I want to say three things:

Happy anniversary to my beloved blog, which has kept me sane during some very trying times these past five years. I will persist and continue Writing With Spirit, despite the madness.

A hearty thank you to all of my followers and readers and fellow bloggers for the encouragement and inspiration and food for thought.

Climate change is real. It is happening. People are dying because of it, in hurricanes, floods, heat waves, tornadoes, typhoons, and tsunamis. After the flooding, the typhoid and cholera. So the Tweeter in Chief and his reality-deniers are criminals. Period. They should all be in jail for mass murder.

I wanted to write about tea — it’s the word prompt of the day, and a subject about which I am very passionate. Then the latest presidential tweet was vomited forth, and I must instead write about a different type of T.

The T in LGBTQ.

I have 4 transgender friends that I know of: one I’ve known since he was a child, one I worked with for more than a decade, one’s a neighbor, and one’s a new friend from Wild Goose Festival.

My heart is just breaking for them today. The president of the United States is harnessing the ignorant hatred that many Americans hold for them and using it for political gain. There are no words to describe my feelings. I am just so, so sorry. I feel sick for you, my friends.

Today the man in the White House tweeted – TWEETED – his decision that trans people can no longer serve in the military. I don’t know what that means for the 15,000-plus who are already in the military. I guess they’re fired.

So the coward who avoided the draft because his feet hurt (but not enough to slow down his tennis game) is now firing service men and women because of who they are. And why? Here’s why:

In case you can’t read that, it’s a reporter who was told by a White House official that this is a good wedge issue for the 2018 election. Democrats will be forced to defend LGBTQ people in states where a lot of blue collar workers hate them.

There you have it, folks. That’s your president.

And just for the irony of it, I will tell you that on this very day in 1948, President Harry Truman signed an executive order that banned discrimination in the military.

It’s probably best that I not spew my raw outrage and despair. There’s enough ugliness out there, and as a Christ-follower, I hope not to contribute to it. I’d like to write about tea, but I can’t.

I’ll just share this old poem from Martin Niemöller, which grows more relevant each day:

Muslims, Hispanics, Pre-existing conditions, Transgender . . .

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Jew.

Lent has begun. As is often the case, I am over-reaching, counting on these forty days to miraculously transform me into a new creation all at once, free from all the parts of myself I don’t want anymore, leaping out of bed at 6 every morning and exclaiming “This is a day that the Lord has made; I will rejoice and be glad in it!” and then making a healthy breakfast with no saturated fat or sugar before heading off to the gym and then coming home to meditate and read my Bible before mindfully munching a lunch of sprouts and legumes and walnuts (rich in healthy omega 3 fatty acids).

It’s not quite that bad this year. My plan is this: I will do my centering prayer meditation every day. I don’t know why this should be such a challenge – I did it daily for five or six years, but I’ve lost the hunger for it. Then I will read twelve pages of The Message Bible in contemporary language. At that rate, I will get through the New Testament in forty days.

In addition — and here is the kicker — I will spend only an hour a day on social media.

Facebook and Twitter flood my being with the lies, vitriol, and bigotry spewing from the White House, and even when the filth is accompanied by witty or wise or motivating commentary from my friends, it is bad for me.

Social media releases brain chemicals that numb my pain and anger, which is nice but not healthy. It allows me to feel as if I’m doing something useful when all I’m doing is losing sleep. But you know that quote from Friedrich Nietzsche: “Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one?” That is the real danger of social media for me. It taps into my hatred and contempt, and it makes me mean-spirited and rude.

And that, I do not need. I am sacrificing it for Lent.

I’m not shutting down, I’ll still be marching and organizing and calling Congress — I just need to survive and not become a monster, is all.

I’ll keep you posted on my efforts.

Beginning the Journey: Ash Wednesday

Today I want to share this excerpt from an Ash Wednesday poem by my friend Robin Gorsline. Food for thought. To read the full poem and others, please visit his blog .

“I saw an Ash Wednesday drive-by yesterday, a church advertising gettingashes on your forehead when you drive into their parking lot—no need to come to service, no need to join in communityprayer. At first, I was repelled, maybe still am, but also I know that it might help some, who would not otherwise bother,to pause to consider their lives, even for just a few moments.

And glitter. I like glitter, and am glad that some churches are combining ash and glitter, acknowledging that I, and everyone else, is a complex mixture of saint and sinner. I remember the year I gave up Lent for Lent.I was tired of beating myself up for my failingsand decided to spend forty days focusing on my good qualities. I wanted to put my best footforward for Jesus, to be all I could be with himon the journey to the cross. I did that only once,but I am glad I did, because it has helped me ever since have a fuller view of me and my relationshipwith Jesus, with the Holy Spirit, with God the Parent.

Like this:

REDEEMING TRUMP™ UGLINESS

Most of us with eyes or ears are thinking a good bit about ugliness lately. It’s creeping like toxic orange sludge across our country. It won’t be ignored. If you are on Twitter, you can’t escape the ugliness even for a minute.

It’s shocking.

Things are bad. Things are really bad. Things are going to get worse before they get better. Don’t ask me how they’re going to get better, I do not know, except to say that there are way more people pumped up and engaged and talking about justice and kindness than I have seen in my lifetime. That can’t be bad. The resistance to ugliness is blossoming.

Dr. Martin Luther King’s statement is true: ‘The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.’My religion is based on a similar truth, love always wins in the end, although certain followers of Christianity mask that truth well.

Today I want to share just one silly — but brilliant — tip that might stem the ugliness and bring a smile to your day. You’ve probably heard about it, but I highly recommend the app from Google Chrome that turns social media pictures of trump™ into cute kittens. It only works with about half the media outlets, but I guarantee, every time you see a picture of that man pop up and then disappear and turn into a bit of harmless fluff, you will smile.

My enthusiasm has turned to disgust. Twitter, again. I thought all this Tweeting nonsense would be over by now, as unfulfilling as it seems.

I often like the WordPress Weekly Writing Challenges. I usually find some other interesting bloggers through it, and often gain a few more “followers” each time I blog on a Challenge.

That’s why I’m so annoyed that the Challenge this week has to do with embedding Twitter in my post. Aren’t there real things to write about? Things that are longer than 120 characters? (Or 140, or whatever it is.)

I’ve always been annoyed by Twitter – I mean, even just the name is obnoxious.

I’m particularly annoyed when my more thoughtful and reflective friends get sucked into Tweet World. Really?

But then I realize that when something bugs me this much, when I make a simple peeve into a matter of principle, there’s usually something deeper going on.

I think I’m afraid.

Afraid that I won’t be able to keep up with this ever-expanding technology race, this social media morass. I hate it when all my friends are staring into their various I-this’s and I-that’s and showing each other their spiffy apps. I feel left out and not up to the task.

And so I feign disdain.

It’s true, life is too short already, and I think a lot of this stuff is a waste of time. I don’t want to bother to learn about it, because it’s not how I want to spend my days here on earth. That’s why I don’t have a TV; if I did, I would watch it, and I don’t want to.

And it’s also true that I’m not working; I’m spending my retirement savings on tuition at the moment, and it seems there are probably more useful things to invest in than all these beeping and ringing and vibrating boxes.

But I used to sneer at Facebook, and now I admit I’m a fan. It really does help me stay connected and up to date with my friends. I also used to mock bloggers (sorry) as self-absorbed ranters without a life. And now I’m an addict. Blogging is the most fun thing EVER.

So who knows? Maybe I’ll Tweet one day. I kind of hope not. Anyway, it won’t be today.

Today I am rebelling. I am going to call this a Daily Post Challenge and I’m not going to embed a Tweet. Or a Twitter. Or whatever. So there.